Of Humanity
by ChaosGriffin
Summary: That's all I am, just the lucky schmuck that won the wrong lottery. I'm the worst guy for this job to be honest. I hate myself, my life, everything. I'll be damned before I watch it die though, because the people I care about are worth that much at least.
1. Prologue

"This is Death Watch reporting live, temporarily of course. We join our newest vict- contestant now. So, Shinji what's the clock say now?"

"Well Mr. Ikari, seems life-support will last for another 10 hours before the asphyxiation via robot juice kicks in."

"Well that's just dandy! Hey folks, don't grab that remote just yet, when we come back this young man will regale us with the stunning tale on how he got in this train wreck, but now a word from our sponsors."

The seat is cold and rigid along my back, the screens are blank, my wrist with glowing LCD, cheerily showing me how little time I have left. The controls unresponsive.

_Sensors blank. No outlying signals at all. _

_LCL starting to solidify. Imaginary news casters inside my head. _

I vaguely realize I'm laughing, astounded at how this pittance of a man, this sob story disaster that is my life will finally end. My self depreciative merriment is cut short when I begin to choke on life… to death!

Heh, dying alone, unloved, in a damn hole. The worst of it all is that apparently my grave shall be marked in imaginary space. Am I such a loathsome wretch that my remains do not even deserve to take up room in an existing reality?

I'm glad Dr. Akagi isn't a psychologist. Telling someone that their apparent demise is occurring in non-physical place doesn't really help them survive it. Of course it's all I deserve really, a few nice words of encouragement, my lack of ability to notice sarcasm, and the fact that I hadn't been on the fast track to mind bending eternal depression in maybe a month amounts to this. The one time I use the little bravado in my possession, and act like any normal kid would if they had a mecha and was charged with saving the human race, I end up in a death trap. Gung ho heroism didn't work out that well.

Still, I think I'll sleep for a while, I can at least dream I'm not dying at 14, I can at least snooze away and wonder at how if by some stroke of luck I lived through all the angels and the world was saved I could maybe _finally_ have a normal life. Or perhaps, I will construct for myself, in my last moments, a world as being a perpetual toddler, a world with smiles and hugs and laughter from **him** of all people, the cookie cutter family at last.

My stomach starts to grumble, I should have eaten breakfast.

* * *

*later*

* * *

I woke up. Normal enough, I'm used to surviving hopeless situations. Vertical plaster of an unknown location greets my eyes. Nerv is huge as are there medical areas; as long as I can smell antiseptic I can finf my way. I don't remember how I got here; sadly amnesia seems to follow me. I'm not to worried as I blink away the sleep from my eyes, night terrors usually impart the missing scenery to me and I can go one day without knowing what new horrible abominations have tarnished and raped my fragile psyche.

The rustle of a page turning catches my ear and I turn in fear as what I see is decidedly outside the realm of my expectations.

Rei Ayanami sitting at the bed side. Her light blue locks cut short for practicality, her bloody eyes discerning what natural disasters have occurred where, and which world leader is in trouble with the U.N. and other trifling matters. What startles me though is the concern in her eyes as she notices my consciousness. Concern of course being her turning her seat to face me instead of just inclining her head.

She then asked, not instructed, me not to move as that would risk my body's nerve signals to respond exponentially causing cranial shutdown for a few more days. She also brought me food. Then proceeded to feed me, citing that as the time was 4 a.m. it would be more convenient than alerting the night shift. I would have protested more, when I realized that I could only move my left arm.

The right one was being held hostage by the other _team mate-feminine interest-headache _in my life. This is not meant in jest, Asuka, she of the fire hair and ocean eyes, wasn't holding my hand in a way that would invite lo- companionship, she was gripping my whole arm like a favorite teddy bear, any tighter and she'd have carried it away as a bloody trophy.

Not wishing to make my stay here worse or longer than it had to be, I drifted into slumber once more, with Asuka's light snoring in my ears. The last sound I heard was Rei's voice, or something like it, singing a haunting melody that I couldn't quite make out.


	2. Ch 1: Just Another Day

**AN: 1. Updates will be sporadic, but I'll try to keep to a schedule. **

**2. Please excuse the prologue, I never know how to get things off the ground.**

**3. Full summary in my profile.**

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**Ch 1: **Just Another Day 

or 

The Best Way to Heal Impending Madness is to Ignore the Signs

Sunlight streams in from the window on my left. The bright light does not yield and proceeds to pierce my eyeballs with its slow ascent into the sky. There were no birds chirping however, so mercifully my ears were spared. I blink away unconsciousness, the room is empty... perhaps I dreamed last night? I begin to crawl up from my bed, I have never liked hospitals, I'll crash back at ho- Misato's place if I don't feel up to going to school. Wait... is it a school day? How long have I been out? Better question. Why the hell am I narrating all my actions? I think that should stop now.

Satisfied with the completion of his internal monologue, Shinji rose from his bed, gave himself a glance over and promptly fell back down in pain. Along his right arm were five distinct bruises, making it rather painful to move his forearm in any capacity.

"Guess Rei really did watch over me last night, would explain why I'm not hungry. Still, it's kind of funny. I make her breakfast, Asuka hurts me, I help her with learning kanji, Asuka hurts me. I save her life, Asuka hurts me. I've been concussed in a mortal struggle and she seeks to comfort me while I sleep, and Asuka still hurts me." Shinji said aloud as he struggled to rise from the bed.

He ignored the fact that he was talking in an empty room.

Shinji's eyes widened in horror as he ran to the bathroom, and coughed. Red spit soon followed. _Blood, I smell blood. No, I smell of blood!_ Water was soon gushing out of the pipe, it was less of a shower, and more of a hosing down. Shinji wasn't picky though as long as he was clean. He stepped out, and once more gave a heave, his only sustenance soon followed. _Chicken soup, I wonder if Rei made it? _Once the filth was cleared from his mouth, Shinji walked to the waiting area, someone Misato most likely, would arrive to get him soon.

As the water drained, a mocking snicker rose up from the pipes. Shinji ignored that too.

The boy's steps echoed down the hallway, it was a long and narrow corridor the acoustics were merely off kilter nothing more. He glanced behind himself anyway, no nothing there. The bench he sat upon gave a creak as the old metal strained under his weight. With nothing better to do, Shinji began to watch the coloration on the wall in front of flake with age as it became solid. Anything was better than having a panic attack from neural feedback, or whatever Dr. Akagi called it, in Shinji's mind he knew he went a little off balance inside of that big shadow world thing. He was not in danger right now though, nor was he in his Eva, therefore there was no reason for him to have a freak out so he just wasn't gonna do it. At all.

_'Hey uh, you can't ignore me forever, I'm in your head after all.' _At that thought Shinji now felt he had a perfectly good reason for that panic attack.

_'Yeah wouldn't do that if I were you, well actually I am you, so don't do it. First off you're not in your room, Second, there is nobody here to supervise you, i.e. a patient. Third, it's only 7:30 kid, so we have to ourself a whole half-hour before Miss. Come-hither actually comes to get us. Heh. So let's talk turkey or penguin for that matter, it's our choice after all._

During this internal dialogue, Shinji did what the voice told him, he did not freak out. Instead... he began to bang his head into the wall. He got dizzy after a while, and nope the running commentary was still going. So he tried the diplomatic approach.

(Who are you? Why are you in my head?)

'_Loaded question right off the bat? Well I could wax poetic about the need for order in a chaotic universe. The constant struggle and triumph of the human condition when faced with adversity. The need for communication between two individuals, lest we all die quietly alone in the dark._ _How no one man can truly be an island. I'm sure any such topic could illuminate the answer to my existence._ _ Of course I can't do that, you don't know so I don't know. A lack of knowledge within a shared mind leads to shallow speeches. Well... I could just bullshit my way through it, but man that's too much work! Woo, went off on a tangent there. Then again my words are measured in neurons firing in our cranium, so in the scope of things, it leaves a lot of time to kill.'_

_'The short of it though. Um Shinji, I'm you.'_

(What are you talking about, I'm me! How can you be me as well?)

_'Well to be accurate I'm not you per say, I'm a part of you. Don't worry though; this isn't existentialism tripe, that's Rei's shtick. Nope, point is you are crazy nuts. For example, the shouting match with you and mini-us inside that weird train. Remember?_

(No, don't! Please, I don't want to remember!)

_'Sheesh alright, you can ignore the incident for as long as you want, it's gonna bite you in the ass though. Anyway back to me or you... your mental health at least. __Huh, let's sing the Shinji is so crazy synonym song, brought to you by ripping off the Animaniac's theme song!_ _How do we know the Animaniac theme song, well it was made before second impact, those wacky Americans will market any old thing ever since their land mass got halved._

(But Aunt Kikyo didn't own a television.)

_'Damnit myself, you just have to ruin everything don'tcha? Right point of order, you Shinji Ikari are as follows. Insane, schizo, paranoid, delusional, bipolar, self-hating, clinically depressed, antisocial, an OCD clean freak, you suffer from parental abandonment, Mommy up and died for no reason when we were four or something like that, and Father gave you the finger and went about succeeding in subjugating the world to his whim. _

_You associate with two people on a regular basis whom also have problems may haps worse than yours. A child soldier who has about as much emotional depth as the expansion of the universe. Sure there's a lot there to explore, but good luck coming out alive. The other is also a child soldier with the emotional stability of the Earth's core. Always malleable ever shifting, and woe to you when it reaches a boiling point. You been next to an erupting volcano? Guess not, we are still here after all. What do you do about these lovely ladies, why you try to fix them of all things. Admirable sentiments to be sure, but uh, blind leading the blind and all that.'_

(Asuka and Rei are much better than I am; don't talk about them like that. How am I bipolar? I am also not a clean freak.)

_'One, Misato's apartment: there's before we got there, and after we got there. Also, have you listened to yourself at all... screaming inside Eva I mean, you're doing fine right here. As for Red vs. Blue if you really care about someone you accept their faults crippling psychological problems and all. We weren't born out of wedlock after all._

(Well, none of that matters. I don't have to listen to you. You're just a figment of my imagination. You don't really exist. Because I am aware of this it proves that I have a sound mind.)

'_Please drop the high and mighty act, you ain't allowed to talk like that until you have a Dr. before your name. And have to listen huh? Just what have you been doing all this time? First sign of insanity me, talking to yourself. First sign of recovery, admitting you have a problem. Oh hey, Miss Tall, Hot, and Lovely has arrived. Let's go home myself._

"Shin-chan? Shinji, you ready to go? I bet you're sick of this place." Shinji looked up and saw his purple haired commander/roommate/salvation.

(Misato-san! She'll know what to do!) He heard a cough way back in his mind- no throat yeah, definitely his throat.

_'Let's play this out. Oh Misato-san there's a creepy voice in my head telling me about all my problems, on the bright side he isn't telling me to burn things. That's not going to work out is it? You'll be stuck in the ward for a good while because Misato cares about you, and the world will die because they're down one Eva pilot. Alternatively, dear old Dad could catch wind of this, commit you and find a replacement. Yeah Shinji, good plan.'_

"Misato-san let's just go home, we can buy breakfast on the way. I'm sorry, I just don't feel up to cooking." He cast his eyes down at his weakness.

Misato merely smiled, good old Shinji she thought, always has to take the world on his shoulders. "That's fine, I'm sure Asuka won't be bothered either, she was worried about you after all." Shinji's arm throbbed in protest.

_'Worried huh? I'd hate to see her pissed. Oh wait, we have!' Oh and look at that smile Misato's giving us! She's like asking for it! I swear if Kaji wasn't the only good male role model we ever had, I'd shoot the suave whatever-his-job-at-Nerv-is._

(Don't forget his effect on Asuka.)

_'Right new plan, we find his house, we get in our Eva, we go for a stroll.'_

(I will not hurt them like that. Besides this is Kaji you are talking about.)

_'Damn his coolness. Damn it I say._

"Shin-chan, quit standing there and get in. I don't drive that badly! I promise, I'll go slow this time. There isn't a bomb about to go off or anything."

'_There's a silver lining in all this though.'_

(Really, what could that be?)

_'I'm only one voice with a lot of_ _a lot of sarcasm and a spiteful attitude__, at least there aren't like 4 of me who go on about sex, war, destruction, and your need to rule humanity.' _**(1)**

To be Continued...

**(1)** Go read Shinji and WarHammer 40k now if you haven't already. Much more epic than this. Oh and review.


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